


Slip Out the Back, Jack

by yaycoffee



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drinking, M/M, Some angst, Songfic, Unhappy marriage, but it works out, leaving fate to the Jukebox Gods, paul simon is a genius!, this might be a songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4409816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaycoffee/pseuds/yaycoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's life is more complicated than he would prefer.  So, he gets drunk and puts one teeny tiny decision into the hands of the jukebox gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slip Out the Back, Jack

**Author's Note:**

> Title, inspiration, and mentioned lyrics from "[50 Ways to Leave Your Lover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=298nld4Yfds)" by Paul Simon. 
> 
> Many thanks to [Youngdarling](http://archiveofourown.org/users/youngdarling) for looking this over and poking me with her red pen of doom until I stopped whining about writer's block and finished this story. Any lingering mistakes are because I simply couldn't leave well enough alone ;-)

It happened this time, as it so often seems to, in a moment of utter domesticity.  He’d heard the whistle of the kettle in the kitchen, the clinking of mugs set down on the worktop, the opening and shutting of the fridge.  Mary waddled heavily into the living room, her pregnant belly reaching the area seemingly ages before the rest of her, and placed a steaming mug of tea on the table in front of John.  He looked up at her, and she smiled at him with a pretty little curve of her pink lips, and like the crashing of a tidal wave—he _hated_ her. 

It’s a bone-deep revulsion that he’s trying very hard to get used to.  It’s been a near-constant problem ever since he moved back in with Mary after Christmas.  She’s trying so hard to be normal, and so his he, but—he just can’t seem to manage it.  In his mind, always, is the sound of gunshots, the feeling of betrayal that he just cannot move past.  His jaw clenches, the tips of his fingers tingle, and there goes that jittering of the marrow in his tibias that makes his toes twitch inside his shoes.  Sometimes the sensation will become something like bearable if he simply waits it out, so he does his best to ignore it.  He breathes carefully, praying that the familiar scent of tea will put him right.

He risks a look back at her, smiling benignly, aiming for _thank you_.  But when she settles into the sofa next to him, he shoots up as though propelled. 

“Sorry,” he says, barely registering the little line of disappointment between her brows as he runs a hand roughly over his face.  “Sorry, I—” and he doesn’t even try to make an excuse—just shakes his head and tries not to laugh or shout or break something.  They lost at least four mugs and two plates in his first week back.  This might be progress, but it doesn’t really feel like it.  He is so tired of fighting this all the time.  The air rushes out from his nostrils, and his feet walk him to the door.  He’s on the pavement outside before he’s even got both his arms in his jacket.  He looks up to the window, but Mary’s face isn’t there this time.

At the end of his street and around the corner is a pub.  His local, though there’s a better one two streets over that he usually goes to.  Inside, it’s dim, the garish glow of fingerprint-smeared fruit and blackjack machines the most lively looking sight by far.  Vinyl signs for Foster’s and Strongbow frame a St George’s Cross above the bar, which he knows from experience will be slightly sticky; the place is fairly repugnant.  But, better than home—or rather, _the house_ , as he’s taken to calling it since… well, since his pregnant wife shot his best friend in the heart.  Jesus Christ.

“Bit of a rough one there, love?” the woman behind the counter asks.  He remembers a time when he had rather an impressive poker face.  Apparently, that’s gone to shit these days, too.

“Yeah,” he says, and he orders a lager.  He doesn’t much feel like making idle chitchat with strangers or the bartender, so he takes his pint to a little side bench in the back near a telly showing football highlights. 

He manages to turn off his brain and let the dull buzz of alcohol take the edge off his still-rattled nervous system.  Just as he’s finishing his beer, a group of blokes just in from what must be a pick-up rugby victory take over the telly area.  They are raucous and jovial and the last thing he feels like dealing with.

 He orders another lager at the bar and decides to peruse the jukebox just opposite, which might just be the only good thing about this place.  Its selection is eclectic though not without a bit of a niche—mostly a mixture of nineties alternative with a smattering of classic rock and one or two top forty choices.  He fishes in his pockets for his wallet, feeds the thing a fiver, and starts making choices. 

He picks songs that remind him of before everything went south—Foo Fighters and Metallica, Stone Roses and Radiohead.  Songs that will be loud enough to drown out his thoughts, songs that were not played at his wedding reception.  But when he’s all done, he’s still got one choice left, so he just presses a couple of buttons, letting fate and the jukebox gods decide what will come last.

It is only a song’s wait for his music to start up, so he drinks and half-listens and tries not to have any sort of serious talk with himself about what the fuck he’s meant to actually _do_.  He and Sherlock had discussed his going back to Mary as a part of some sort of grand plan to keep her monitored and threat-neutral until after the baby came.  It made so much sense at the time, so he’d prepared his words about the memory stick and had swallowed down his revulsion as he embraced her in the Holmes’s lounge on Christmas day.  He was so pleased with himself then.  He thought he could do it, could go through the motions and play nice, pretend that he wanted the life he’d built with her, but he’s so far removed from wanting that life, from wanting her, that the pretending isn’t even worth it anymore. 

After “Monkeywrench,” he gets another drink—whiskey this time.   And another one after “Fools Gold.”  He remembers the army, Murray’s kind smile and the exact odour of his farts as the opening riff of “Enter Sandman” begins, and for a while, he is blissfully transported.  The bartender hands him a fresh whiskey just as the last of his selections begins, so he takes it back to the little table that he’s made his own for the evening and continues to let his world and all its problems fade into the buzz and squeal of feedback from Thom Yorke’s guitar.  There is the pause when it’s done as the jukebox calls up the next track—the last one, the one he didn’t actually choose.  His mind is sluggish and muffled, but he finds himself oddly eager to find out what it’s going to be.

It’s not terribly loud or crowded in the bar, but the opening strains of the song are quiet, a bit difficult to hear well, but it doesn’t matter.  He recognises those familiar rolling drums easily enough.  John snorts into his drink, and though he has had this song memorised from the time he was about ten, he listens to the lyrics like they are brand new. 

_The problem is all inside your head she said to me.  The answer is easy if you take it logically._

Bloody perfect.  It sounds so much like Sherlock that he lets out a single bark of humourless laughter.  He can practically hear the lyrics being spoken in Sherlock’s deep baritone rather than Paul Simon’s narrative tenor.  He sips as Simon lays out some very simple options:  _Slip out the back, Jack.  Make a new plan, Stan._

John shakes his head slowly, swigs the last of the drink, and sets it on the table in front of him.  He barely moves as he listens to the rest.  Every word feels like the answer, like taking back his freedom is the simplest thing in the world.  Maybe it is.  _Drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free._

The world feels oddly quiet when the song is over—just the hushed sounds of the pub around him as the jukebox sluggishly searches for something else to play.  By the time the music starts up again, John’s thoughts have found him.  They are coming on much too fast, chaotic and confusing as they smack clumsily into the patches of cotton wool inside his drink-addled brain.  He really should go.  He needs to get out of here.

The world sways just a bit when he stands.  He closes out his tab, assures the lady behind the bar that he has no intentions of driving, and then he is walking on wobbly legs into the chill of the night.  He doesn’t fancy going home, so he turns away from the house.  As he walks by a bus stop on the pavement, he laughs out loud as a bus screeches to a stop just as he arrives.  Fucking hell.  Why not?  _Hop on the bus, Gus._

He has no idea which route this is, and he doesn’t care.  He stays until the driver announces the last stop.  And, what do you know—there’s a Tube station _right there_. 

 _“_ Get on the train, Wayne,” John says to himself.  He snorts, managing to bite back the full-throated laugh that springs up at his own stupid joke.  _That’s not actually a lyric_ , he thinks, putting up a wobbly index finger in front of his own face in reprimand.  And then he does laugh—a high, throaty thing that sounds manic to the small portion of his brain that knows exactly what he is doing.

The journey passes in a bit of a haze, and before he even knows it, he is stepping onto the platform at Baker Street station.  It is only minutes before he’s standing in front of the door of 221b, inspecting each key on his ring with the utmost scrutiny until he finds the right one.  There it is.  It takes him a moment, but he manages to fit it into the lock, and then, he’s made it.  He lumbers up the stairs and to the door at the top, and once there, he doesn’t bother knocking before stumbling through.

“Ah, John,” Sherlock says, folding an opened book over the arm of his chair.  “Was I expecting you?”

“’S late.  I’m sorry—dropping in like this,” John announces.  Then, “Wait.  No.  No, I‘m not.  This is where I’m going.  This is where I’m meattobe.”  He stumbles over his words, feeling drunker now that he was ten minutes ago.

“It’s not late, John.  It’s half-eight.  You’re drunk.”

“Excellent deduction.”  John flops down into his chair.  _His chair_.  Best chair in the whole world, this.  He closes his eyes for just a moment and lets the world fall still. He startles at the feel of cool glass underneath his fingertips.  Sherlock has handed him some water.  He sips as Sherlock settles into his chair opposite.

“You had a row with Mary.”  Sherlock isn’t asking.  

John looks at Sherlock until he comes into proper focus.  It takes a few seconds, but there—there he is.  “There you are,” he says.  His stomach flips and churns, so he takes another sip to try and settle it down.  It works a little.

Sherlock regards him thoughtfully but stays quiet. 

“I don’t think I can go back there,” John says, words still slurring, but that doesn’t make them any less true.  “I can’t pretend like I want… like I _don’t_ want…”

Sherlock’s eyes soften for a fraction of a second before focusing like lasers again.  “We have discussed this, John.  It isn’t safe—”

“Fuck being safe!” John growls, cutting him off.  He sets the glass down heavily on the table and puts his hands on his knees, breathing deeply. 

Sherlock doesn’t flinch.  He sighs, leaning forward in his chair, and when he clasps his hands together between his knees, John can feel air shifting over his own knuckles.  He has an impulse to reach out, to grasp Sherlock’s hands in his own, but he doesn’t. 

God, he’s tired.  So bloody tired of being angry, of being hurt, and from everything having to be so damn complicated all the time.  _The answer is easy if you take it logically._   John knows what he wants.  It’s all right here in front of him.  The real question is if he is ready for the risk.  He meets Sherlock’s eyes and holds. 

“Sherlock,” he says, and he keeps his voice steady.  “I won’t go back.”  This time, his voice is steady, the wool clearing from his brain.  He shifts up in his seat, inching forward.  His knees brush Sherlock’s, and  Sherlock does flinch a bit this time, but he doesn’t move away. 

“John,” Sherlock says, deep voice steady, but he can’t stop blinking.  John breathes deep and reaches out, fingers brushing just at Sherlock’s temple, thumb smoothing first under an eye and then over the lid until Sherlock is still.  Sherlock’s breath is on his wrist, and Sherlock’s hands unclasp to rest lightly on his knees.  John feels something inside himself unlock.  He drops his head down to Sherlock’s shoulder, and though his mind is clearer than it has been in weeks, his still-uncoordinated body falls out his chair, leaving his face to plant directly into Sherlock’s belly. 

“Nicely done, John,” Sherlock says, and John can hear the curve of his lips. 

John laughs a little into Sherlock’s shirt and brings himself up onto his knees, and without another moment’s thought, he presses his lips to Sherlock’s, dry and warm.  He feels Sherlock’s inward breath, pulls back to check everything’s okay, and then Sherlock leans in again, this time with lips parted.  John slides a hand around to the back of Sherlock’s head to steady himself and lets everything be as simple as it should have been all along.  When his knees begin to hurt, he stands, pulling Sherlock up with him.  

“We are going to need a new plan,” Sherlock says, hands resting on John’s shoulders, fingers stroking the bare skin just at his collar.  “Any ideas?”

“Fifty,” John says, smiling, and he pulls Sherlock in for another kiss.

-End-


End file.
